Exito Travel Blog

LA to NYC in Under an Hour… Will it be Possible?

July 19, 2013

Quick and convenient travel is the ideal for travelers all across the globe, but an hour trip, when it usually takes around 5 hours or more, from LA to NYC seems like some sort of hoax. But to top that, Tesla Motors CEO and co-founder Elon Musk says his hyperloop system will let you make the trip in half an hour!

Who’s doing it?
Elon Musk has been a ground breaker in our world for a while now. He changed the nature of money when he co-founded PayPal, the electronic payment system. After selling Paypal to eBay, he has since served as CEO of SpaceX which is in the business of building rocketships and spacecraft. He co-founded SpaceX and is now under contract with NASA to service the International Space Station. On top of these accomplishments is his role as co-founder, CEO and CTO of Tesla Motors, which is proving to the world that all-electric vehicles can be profitable. Musk isn’t working alone, though. ET3, a company from Longmont, Colorado, has already been working hard at making this a reality, calling their project the Evacuated Tube Project instead of the Hyperloop.

What is it?
This isn’t about the people, though, it’s about his high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop. It is a tube transportation system, that would ideally be solar powered, that would allow passengers to travel at high speeds for a fraction of the cost of previous transportation methods. A proposed ticket from LA to NYC would be $100! And if that wasn’t enough, he says his tube system would make it impossible to crash.Â He describes the Hyperloop as a cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table. If you can picture that, kudos to you! But a better description might be an elevated tube system with a magnetic levitation system (similar to high-speed bullet trains).

How does it work?
The enclosed tube would provide nearly frictionless travel. The vague schematic’s that have already been put in place have plans for an automobile-sized six-passenger capsule that could reach 4000 miles per hour on longer journeys easily, and is constructed for “outer space” travel conditions. ET3 has built prototypes and is planning a 3-mile test run by the end of 2013.

This could potentially change travel altogether. Could it make some forms of travel obsolete? Will it catch on at all? Will we stop fighting over windows and aisles because we will be traveling underground? How do you feel about this? Do you think it will happen? Please comment and let us know!

Feel free to how this idea was forming back in the ’70s, watch a video about the company ET3’s work and/or reference the rest of the original article.